Sunday, May 27, 2012

Illustration Challenges

With the endless things there are to be drawn, I sometimes find it hard to find a starting point to push my illustration boundaries. Maybe it's because for near 20 years I was sitting in a classroom with assignments, but I always seem to be more motivated when I have some sort of challenge before me.

That said I have three groups/pages I want to suggest that I always run to when I need some inspiration and motivation.

The first is the Design-A-Character group on DeviantART. It was started by the wonderfully talented Luigi Lucarelli and features a character design challenge every month, and has a whole gallery of challenges to look through. This page is a great way to get the creative muscles flexing and strengthen/develop those character drawing skills!

The second is a variation of the first in that it's another character challenge. Character Driven on Blogger is a great place for a quick challenge. It supplies you with a new challenge daily by providing three describing words and one optional fantasy addition challenge (For example: A hairy, bashful, knight who may or may not be a demon) Unfortunately the Randomizing page seems to be temporarily down, hopefully it will be back up soon.

The last is Critter Jam over on DeviantArt. Every month (or so) a little known, or under-represented REAL animal is chosen for the group project, and it's up to the artist how, and in what medium, they would like to represent that creature. I enjoy this challenge as it pushes me to consider creatures that I may not have even realized exist. This month it's the Satanic Leaf Tailed Gecko, my own interpretation is posted above.

So there you have it. There are plenty more challenges like these out there (I find DeviantArt is a great place to find them, as well as blogger) So feel free to search out the ones that appeal most to you! Have fun and keep drawing!